Narvikⓘ (Norwegian) or Áhkánjárga (Northern Sami)[4] is a town[1] and the administrative centre of Narvik Municipality in Nordland county, Norway.

The history of modern Narvik begins in the 1870s, when the Swedish government began to understand the potential of the iron ore mines in Kiruna, Sweden.

Swedish mining corporation LKAB still ships the majority of its ore from Narvik (a total 25 million tons a year).

[9] The port of Narvik proved to be strategically valuable in the early years of World War II and the town became a focal point of the Norwegian Campaign.

During the summer season, this ore could be sent by cargo ship to Germany through the Baltic Sea via the Swedish port of Luleå on the Gulf of Bothnia.

However, when the Gulf of Bothnia froze during the winter, more shipments of the ore needed to be transported through Narvik and, from there, down the west coast of Norway to Germany.

As a result, Narvik serves as a gateway to the ore fields of Sweden that cannot be easily reached from southern Norway via land.

Winston Churchill realised that the control of Narvik meant stopping most German imports of iron ore during the winter of 1940.

Equally as important, later in the war, German submarines and warships based there threatened the allied supply line to the Soviet Union.

[10] Churchill proposed laying a naval minefield in Norwegian territorial waters around Narvik (referred to as "the Leads")[10] or else occupying the town with Allied troops.

The Allies hoped that they might be able to use an occupied Narvik as a base from which to secure the Swedish ore fields and/or to send supplies and reinforcements to Finland, then fighting the Finnish Winter War with the Soviet Union.

[10] Finally, on 8 April 1940, the British Admiralty launched Operation Wilfred, an attempt to lay anti-shipping minefields around Narvik in Norwegian territorial waters.

The same day, while operating in the Narvik area, the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious during the withdrawal from this battle.

[11] Without support from the Allied naval task force, the Norwegians were outnumbered and they had to lay down their arms in Norway on 10 June 1940.

[12] Port authorities have initiated an expansion of the container area of approximately 45,000 square metres (11 acres), which is more than twice what Norway's largest terminal in Oslo today handles.

A present and historical key to land transportation to Narvik is the Ofoten Line railway from northern Sweden across the mountains to this port town.

However, it is possible to reach Narvik by way of an approximately twenty-hour 1,540-kilometre (960 mi) train journey through the Swedish rail system from Stockholm using the Iron Ore Line.